5 WordPress Plugins Every Blogger Needs

If you use the WordPress platform for your blog or business, you are most likely familiar with the power of plugins for your site. Plugins provide an added functionality to your site, typically without needing a developer to get involved. Essentially, they make updating + expanding your site a breeze. I feel like there really is a plugin for just about anything! Here are a few WordPress plugins that have increased my productivity, and given me the added functionality my website was lacking before. Hope these help you out!

Bloom Email Opt-in

Recently, I installed this opt-in form plugin on my site and have seen a huge increase in my newsletter subscription (thanks guys!). I struggled finding a free newsletter opt-in plugin for Wordrpess that I felt comfortable customizing to my branding. The bloom plugin, by Elegant Themes, provides a great option that is super easy to customize, track analytics, and allows you to create multiple opt-in forms. There are multiple ways to utilize this plugin: your sidebar, below each blog post, inline, etc. I highly recommend this plugin for WordPress, if you are looking to add a newsletter sign-up to your site! You can take a look at this plugin in action, below this blog post. View plugin.

Akismet

If you have a WordPress blog, you totally understand the need for a spam blocker plugin! Akismet is the plugin that my developer recommended, when I was fed up with sifting through multiple spam comments. As he so eloquently phrased it, “Manually deleting spam is no way to live.” Go ahead and save yourself some frustration and download this plugin! View plugin.

Click to Tweet

Sometimes I have a thought-provoking blog post, mostly about branding, and there are a few key concepts that I want to bring attention to. A lot of these times, the concept is something quotable and lends itself for readers to share through a tweet. I recommend using this plugin sparingly, as it can come across as too self-promotional if you incorporate multiple “click to tweet” features throughout your blog post.View plugin. Here is an example to see it in action:

[Tweet “5 Wordpress Plugins Every Blogger Needs”]

jQuery Pin It Button for Images

Pinterest is such an integral part of blogging these days, so I try to make it simple for readers to pin images from my blog post. You can easily modify the rollover “pin it” button to be customized with your brand. This is a small, yet great, way to apply your branding to a different feature on your site. I’m all about making the experience easy for my readers, even if through a simple pin it button feature, including the caption text in the image! View plugin.

WordPress Backup to Dropbox

Don’t live in fear that your WordPress site will disappear one day! If I don’t have it set on autopilot, I would most likely forget to frequently backup my site. Luckily, I stumbled upon this simple plugin that allows you to schedule the frequency + day to backup your WordPress site to your Dropbox account. Simple as that. View plugin.

What about you guys? Do you have any WordPress plugins that have sped up your workflow, or were a great addition to your site/blog? Please share in the comments!